Votes are limited to one per person per day. Only votes cast in the Republic of Ireland will be counted. Voting closes at midnight on Sunday 3rd March.

As part of RTÉ’s continued commitment to promoting Irish music, RTÉ 2FM celebrates the announcement of the shortlist across its schedule throughout the day with another All Irish Music All Day from 6am to midnight.

The winning song and album will be announced at the RTÉ Choice Music Prize live event, held inVicar Street, Dublin onThursday 7thMarch and broadcast live on RTÉ 2FM in a special four-hour extended show from 7-11pm. A special television programme of the event will be broadcast shortly afterwards on RTÉ2.

The 14th annual RTÉ Choice Music Prize will once again celebrate the best in Irish recorded music. The Prize has become one of the music industry highlights of the year since its inception in 2005. The Irish Album of the Year award is chosen from a shortlist of ten albums by a panel of twelve Irish music media professionals and industry experts.

RAAP, Culture Ireland and The BAI are also official project partners of the RTÉ Choice Music Prize.

Culture Ireland will fund the attendance of influential overseas Industry executives to attend the RTE Choice Music Prize Live Event on March 7th. First Music Contact (FMC), as part of their international profiling activity, will again advise on the selection of overseas delegates and oversee their integration into the individual mentoring sessions with the artists and the conference.

RTÉ Choice Music Prize “Conversations” will return and take place on the 7th.

Tickets for the Choice Music Prize live event are on sale now from all Ticketmaster outlets and from http://www.ticketmaster.ie priced €28.00 including booking fee.

Dublin art-punks Silverbacks have impressed with latest single ‘Just In The Band’, produced by Girl Band’s Daniel Fox and released through their own PK Miami Records. Today, they reveal a live video for the track after Clash described it as “an incisive, intense, pulsating performance, reminiscent of everyone from Gang Of Four to Fugazi and The Fall.”

Irish art punks Silverbacks delve into themes of false idolatry and deeper connection in their latest track. Produced by Daniel Fox from fellow Dubliners Girl Band, ‘Just In The Band’ carries the same nagging unease as previous single ‘Dunkirk’ with taut drums and unrelenting bass underpinning seasick guitar arps and Daniel O’Kelly’s blunt commentary on the ‘problems down the back’. Feedback soaked and frazzled, it sees the band step further away from their indie roots and more into the groove – if the groove covered itself in petrol and dared you to light the match.

Silverbacks
are a
thrilling prospect, delivering their own louche take on NYC-indebted
rock: slack enough for the tastemakers while also mining the gems of a
pop vein, catching the ears of those with a taste for a good hook. Now a
full-fledged five piece after graduating from the bedroom project of
songwriting brothers Kilian and Daniel O’Kelly, they ply their trade
with as much emphasis on the dry humour running through Daniel’s lyrics
as the propulsive, triple guitar-led onslaught in their music.

ZAPHO released her debut single ‘Do Like I Do’ on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Apple, Deezer, etc. through Distrokid. From Rathfarnham, Dublin, 25-year-old singer, songwriter, musician, producer and performer ZAPHO (aka Ele Breslin) writes the kind of smart, svelte electro-pop/soul songs that arrive only from an intuitive understanding of the form.

Do Like I Do was a long time in the making. Written and produced by ZAPHO, with varying inputs from various producers, Steve McCann, Andy Savours and Steve Osbourne, this single is truly the product of creative collaboration. Reefing Pop by its neck collar, ZAPHO’s debut single is set to turn our senses on their toes, reminding us of what we love about Pop as a genre, while unsettling our expectations of what it should be. Like ZAPHO herself, Do Like I Do, is a standalone piece, but in the same breath the song is a resounding shout-out to that feeling of doing whatever we want to do, whenever we want to do it while owning the confidence of knowing you’re great at what you do. Do Like I Do, was mixed by James Darkin of Dublin’s Herbert Lane Studio and mastered by Pete Maher.

Jack Lukeman (BCO music patron) together with the National Children’s Choir and the Trinity String Orchestra have come together for The Starman Project to release David Bowie’s iconic anthem ‘Starman’. The single will be available from all digital platforms from Friday 9th November 2018 to coincide with Science Week and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo missons.

A group of Irish students from Cork’s Educate Together overseen by CIT Blackrock Castle Observatory (BCO) have led the charge on The Starman Project that has seen young people from all over the country coming together to collaborate on a recording of David Bowie’s ‘Starman’ in conjunction with the Dublin Bowie Festival.

Speaking about the single BCO spokesperson Clair McSweeney said “The Apollo missions were an exercise in testing the limits of human ambition and cooperation that culminated in timeless events that unified and inspired a generation. The small step, before the giant leap. As the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission approaches in 2019, what better way to celebrate it than to undertake another ambitious project in that spirit of cooperation with students from across Ireland collaborating with Jack Lukeman and the National Children’s Choir on The Starman Project and the release of ‘Starman’ in aid of Lauralynn Children’s Hospice”.

The Starman video is inspired by the Earthrise image; the first image of planet Earth to capture the world’s imagination taken during the Apollo 8 mission on December 24, 1968 and by David Bowie’s love of Earth and Space, and appreciation of our duty of care to our only home. The video is set against a sweeping backdrop of Ireland’s Dark Sky sites, archeoastronomy sites and skyscapes such as Newgrange and the Boyne Valley where over 5,000 years ago Stone Age astronomers in Ireland built monuments to track the Sun.

‘Starman’, produced by Duncan Maitland, Ger Eaton and Jack Lukeman, was recorded at the Sound Training College by Jack Lukeman and is available for streaming/download across all digital platforms from Friday 12 November 2018

Jack Lukeman has been touring as special guest with The Proclaimers and Jools Holland on their UK tour dates since October 2018 but makes a highly anticipated return to Ireland in December including a show at the National Concert Hall with the National Children’s Choir on 2 December 2018.

JACK LUKEMAN – UPCOMING IRISH TOUR DATES

2 December – The National Concert Hall with the National Children’s Choir

The four piece have been lighting up the Irish airwaves this summer with their massive hit single ‘Can’t Move On’. The song of the summer, which follows their radio hits ‘All Or Nothing’ and ‘Lose Control’, has started making waves in the UK and has been selected by BBC Radio 1 for ‘Best New Pop’ and featured as Zane Lowe’s ‘Breaking’ artist on Beats1.

Since they burst onto the live scene in 2017, Wild Youth have found themselves invited to support artists such as Niall Horan, The Script, and Zara Larsson on arena sized shows.This summer they’ve been drawing huge crowds to their festival slots at Sea Sessions and Indiependence and tickets for their sold out Whelan’s show (22 September) were snapped up by fans in just a couple of days. Next up the band join The Coronas as their special guests at King John’s Castle (25 August) before they take to the Electric Picnic stage next month to top off their summer festival season.

Currently splitting their time between Dublin and London, writing and recording their first album, Wild Youth are set to become one of the hottest acts of 2018 and beyond.

Upcoming Tour Dates:

25 August: King John’s Castle, Limerick – special guests for The Coronas

The Riptide Movement come through with the new hard-hitting video for their environmentally focused “Plastic Oceans”. Recorded in London with producer Chris Coady (Future Islands, Slowdive) there’s a firm backbone of the kind of slow-burning, melodic indie rock that has seen the act build a substantial following in their native Ireland.

This summer sees the band continue with a heavy touring schedule with a series of gigs and festival appearances in coastal areas, using the track to spread the serious environmental message that our beaches, coastlines, rivers, cities and towns need to be kept litter and plastic free if society is to help prevent our oceans from becoming even more polluted by plastic waste.

The concept for the new video is the brainchild of The Riptide Movement’s frontman Malachy Tuohy. Featuring beautifully powerful choreography from London-based dance company Edifice Dance Theatre, and dancers Carmine De Amicis and Harriet Waghorn, the new video for ‘Plastic Oceans’ is a visually compelling expression of the need for change in the way we produce, consume, and dispose of the inexplicable amounts of plastic globally on a daily basis.

Speaking on the track, lead singer Mal Tuohy states: “We’re honoured that our music will help raise awareness of one of the greatest environmental challenges of our time. Our reliance on single use plastics is destroying our oceans, so well highlighted by David Attenborough in Blue Planet 2. As the saying goes, ‘there are plenty more fish in the sea’ but if we can’t stem the tide of plastic, by 2050 there’ll be more plastic than fish in our oceans. The future is in our hands.”

Having just returned from well received festival appearances in The Netherlands and the UK, Cronin have a Summer run of Irish gigs to tie in with the release of the video for “She Saves”, which Irish Music Bible Hot Press have called “An invigorating mix of Nick Cave, the Bunnymen and just about every classic British guitar band you care to name.”

Blaithin CARNEY’s new single ‘No Means No’ is available to buy and stream from today. At time of writing the single has entered the iTunes singer songwriter chart at No 3.

This is the Kildare based singer/songwriter’s third single in just over 12 months, following ROME (May 2017 – iTunes No. 1) and Close My Eyes (November 2017 – iTunes No 2) To coincide with the single’s release Blaithin and her band have a headline show in Naas Midsummers Arts Festival on this coming Sunday. Gavin Glass, Blaithin’s good friend and one of Ireland’s foremost singer songwriters is special guest at the concert which takes place on Sunday evening (June 24th) in Naas Arts and Culture Centre in McAuley Place.

This is an early show with doors opening at 6.30pm and Gavin on stage at 7.15 followed by Blaithin and her band shortly after 8. If you don’t have your tickets already, you can get them in advance fromwww.moattheatre.com

The powerful and beautiful video for the new single ‘No Means No’ was directed by Stephen Mogerley, with lighting by Paul O’Connor, the team was completed by Makeup Artist Paddy McGurgan, Hair by Sarah Ethel and Styling by Jules Gavin.

‘No Means No’, written by Blaithin, could easily be also called Enough Is Enough! Written last winter, each listener is likely to have their own respective no. From the writer’s perspective she was frustrated at the global wrongs surrounding us at the time, indeed while writing the song and even more, new situations presented and frustrations grew. However, we believe the song has a positive theme also. In Blaithin’s own words,

“I don’t like over analysing each song I write, but if pushed to answer…”, at its base, at its most personal and localised “the song is about communication, or lack thereof more than anything else. People not listening to each other, but also having the courage to use your voice to stand up for yourself, or the cause you believe in. Whatever this might be.”

The emotive track was produced by Billy Farrell at Deadeye Productions, mixed and mastered by Dani Castelar and includes strings by David Doyle, Denise Doyle and Kenneth Rice.